Basel crypto-asset standards

The Basel Committee on Banking Supervision, which sets international bank capital standards, published its prudential treatment of crypto-asset exposures in December 2022 and amended it in 2024. It sorts crypto into groups. Group 1 covers tokenised traditional assets and stablecoins that pass strict tests on reserves and redemption, treated broadly like the underlying assets. Group 2 covers everything else, including bitcoin and ether, and carries a risk weight of up to 1,250%, which means banks must hold capital roughly equal to the exposure.

The standard also caps a bank's total exposure to Group 2 crypto at a small share of its core capital, and imposes extra charges for infrastructure risk. Its implementation date was set for 1 January 2026, though jurisdictions transpose it on their own timetables and some have diverged.

Supporters say the rules protect banks from volatile assets; critics in the industry and some regulators argue they make it nearly impossible for banks to hold crypto or permissionless-chain stablecoins and that the treatment needs revisiting. The Basel Committee has since launched an expedited, targeted review of parts of the standard, still in progress during 2026.